An ode to editing, an apology to writers

Graphic depicting a love letter with red editing marks. Mariya Yasinovska I have been editing for almost three years, and I still reference my Associated Press Stylebook, annually repurchased for $30, to validate most of my edits. I have Associated Press News bookmarked on my computer and click it every time I open an article from The University News copy folder. I cannot imagine receiving 86 edits from a copy editor you barely know and have never talked to. Writers place blind trust in a copy editor’s edits; trusting that they know what they are editing, why they are editing and why they have the authority and responsibility to edit. I love editing because I am the third reader of a writer’s work, the first being themselves and the second their section editor. I have the opportunity to consume their work with an audience’s eyes and ears in mind. I go line by line and make sure every sentence adheres to AP style guidelines. I delete the Oxford commas, spell out the number nine and search for thirty minutes in the AP stylebook to figure out if president or volleyball should be capitalized. Should a state follow this city? Should there be single or double quotation marks? Should the first word after the colon be capitalized, in this specific case? I have spent almost an hour figuring out if a sentence could be rewritten in active voice or if a semicolon was needed to clarify a point. I go through the article and add a period between every mention of a.m. or p.m., delete unnecessary adjectives or adverbs and decide whether a writer chose the right word. The AP stylebook reminds me that smaller words are better than bigger words. I spend around an hour on average editing each article gracing my screen. I make mistakes when editing, more often than I would like. I appreciate the economics of QWERTY and the delete key — the one I use the most. When I’m done, a writer sees a lot of green: added commas, deleted words, reworded sentences, deleted sentences, […]

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